


The Gift of You

by CynSyn



Series: Sozzled in Soho [9]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Being an Angel (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Drunk Aziraphale (Good Omens), Drunken Flirting, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Flirty Aziraphale (Good Omens), Flirty Crowley (Good Omens), Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Good Person Crowley (Good Omens), Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Please Don't Copy to Other Sites, Sassy Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 04:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20860142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynSyn/pseuds/CynSyn
Summary: Aziraphale sighed softly, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye before looking up at the ceiling. “Oh, it’s… I just… I was just thinking about things. I wonder, sometimes, you know? I wonder what might have been, had we not been stationed together in Eden by accident.”Crowley looked at him, furrowing his eyebrows slightly as he took in Aziraphale’s words, turning them over and around in his head before he quietly spoke. He smacked his lips and swallowed thickly. “That wasn’t an accident, Angel.”“It wasn’t?”





	The Gift of You

**Author's Note:**

> While this drew from several things, the main catalyst was a particular conversation I had the privilege of having recently that really got the words flowing.

** _ Post Apocalottanothinghappened: _ **

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Crowley said, pointing at Aziraphale from around his wineglass.

“What look?” Aziraphale replied, barely looking up.

“That thinky-thoughts look.”

_Oh_. “Well, yes, I suppose I do.”

“What are you thinking about, Angel?”

“It’s not important.” _You’d think it silly, I’m sure_, he thought.

“It is to you. It’s important to you. That’s why you’re thinking about it. Don’t you think that makes it important enough?”

A deceptively small, but wholly endeared, smile began to tug at the corners of the angel’s mouth as he continued to look off into the distance. “I suppose I must do.”

“D-you wanna talk about it?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really.”

The demon raised his eyebrows reassuringly, silently encouraging the angel to continue with a slight cock of his head.

Aziraphale sighed softly, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye before looking up at the ceiling. “Oh, it’s… I just… I was just thinking about things. I wonder, sometimes, you know? I wonder what might have been, had we not been stationed together in Eden by accident.”

Crowley looked at him, furrowing his eyebrows slightly as he took in Aziraphale’s words, turning them over and around in his head before he quietly spoke. He smacked his lips and swallowed thickly. “That wasn’t an accident, Angel.”

“It wasn’t?”

“N…no, I don’t feel like it was.”

“How do you mean?”

“Meeting you was never an accident,” he began. “A surprise, maybe. Definitely a surprise, but never an accident.”

“A surprise?”

“Y..yeah. You know, in the way that a sssurprise is a gift. An accident is usually something you regret, or that you wouldn’t want to do again. That doesn’t describe my experience meeting you at all.”

The angel’s eyes had moved from the ceiling to meet the eyes of the demon, who suddenly lost interest in whatever he had been looking for in the pattern of the carpet. 

“How would you describe it, then?” The angel asked in a hushed tone.

“For me, it was like stumbling upon something I never knew I always wanted.”

Aziraphale’s eyes glistened as they grew slightly wider.

Crowley’s smile reached all the way up to his eyes as he spoke. “That’s part of the gift.”

“What’s the rest?”

“Every moment after.”

A surprised gasp slipped past the angel’s lips.

“Why not?” The demon responded. “They brought us here.”

“Surely not _every_ moment…”

“Well…” Crowley drawled, looking off to the side, “It’s not as if I’ve got the receipts to return some of them.”

The angel scoffed slightly.

“Besides, they’re part of a matched set. Like volumes of an encyclopedia. You might think you’d never need one of the volum—”

“Oh, I’d never think that,” Aziraphale interrupted.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Crowley conceded. “But that’s really my point, isn’t it?”

“Your point is that I like books? My dear, that’s hardly revolutionary information.” He tried to hide the urbane grin behind his glass.

Crowley stared at him, briefly, his mouth slightly open, licking his back teeth with a sigh of quiet exasperation. He sucked a breath through his teeth quickly as he closed them back together, pausing a beat before continuing. “You’re impossible. But that, too, is my point.”

“I assure you, my dear, that I’m quite possible. You’re thinking of _improbable_.”

The demon swallowed a sip of wine with a grimace. “I’m thinking of _leaving the room_.”

“You don’t have to do that. We’re having such a lovely conversation,” Aziraphale teased.

Crowley stared at him with the wide-eyed, harp-strung taut patience of a man-shaped being ready to snap into a series of discordant notes.

Aziraphale relented, recognizing that while playful banter was generally encouraged, perhaps now wasn’t the time for quite so many semi-sardonic speech suspensions on his part. “I’m sorry, please continue. I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

What began as a sulky pout transformed through a growling sigh into a smirk and then a smile. “I know you do. And you’ve given me so much to work with here.” He took a sip, smacked his lips in thought for a moment, and spoke again. “Think of them as the filler packaging around the good bits. The ribbons, the bows, the protective bubble wrap. Those blasted little plastic bits attached to the cardboard backing. Some of it is lovely, and might even serve a real and genuine purpose,” He looked the angel up and down. “But it’s incredibly annoying and frustrating.”

The angel cocked an eyebrow at the demon and took a pointed sip, politely, but pertly, daring him to continue.

“It’s those bits, those annoying and frustrating little strings and fasteners, that you have to go through to get to the really good part inside.”

“You can get things in what’s called _frustration-free packaging_ now, Crowley.” Oh, he had done it again, hadn’t he? Perhaps he had had enough wine.

“Oh?” Crowley sputtered.” Yeah, right, okay, of course, yeah. I suppose I’ll just trade my angel up, shall I? Get one with fewer layers of cardboard and—” His eyes narrowed slightly. “How do _you_ know about that? Amazon doesn’t have a mail-order catalog or deliver in horse drawn carriage.”

“I can _know_ things, Crowley. I _know_ what’s _going on_ in the world.”

The demon grinned widely. “You don’t,” he said as if it were the most endearingly precious thing his sweetly-set-in-his-ways angel had ever said. “You overheard someone in the shop talking about it, didn’t you?”

Aziraphale looked to the side. “Sometimes that’s how I know things,” he muttered. “But I _could_.”

“You could,” Crowley agreed. “But you don’t, and that’s one of those bits— it’s a decorative tartan ribbon, in case you’re wondering—that surrounds the gift of you.”

“That sounds so lovely.”

“You’re thinking about tartan bows, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“No. Yes. I’m a gift wrapped in a tartan ribbon," Aziraphale said, breathily.

“Well…” He pouted his lips and cocked an eyebrow while tilting his head. “Sometimes that’s true, I suppose. But that wasn’t really what I said, not exactly. But then again, you do tend to get this way when you’ve been drinking.”

“What way?”

Crowley gestured to all of him.

“How is it that _you’re_ the one making the most sense right now?” Aziraphale asked.

“Oh, I… uh… I sobered up already.”

“You what? When?”

“When you were dithering on about whether or not to let me know what was wrong.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been completely sober while I’ve been prattling on, embarrassing myself?” Aziraphale accused.

“I never said I was completely sober,” Crowley countered.

“But you’re sober enough!” Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised.

“I was being supportive!” The demon threw his hands up.

“Yes, thank you, and it was very kind of you!” The angel’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I know! I did it for you! But why are you yelling at me?”

“Because I’m _drunk_, Crowley!” He pointed a shaky finger. “And you’re yelling back!”

“You yelled at me first!” Crowley touched both hands to his own chest. “And _I’m_ a demon!”

“And I like pears, but one isn’t necessarily cont-, conti-, ‘tingen-, one doesn’t cause the other!” Aziraphale crossed his arms across his chest and huffed.

Crowley let out an exasperated whine/sigh/growl that was about as intimidating as a soggy spoon of sugary cereal and twice as sweet to Aziraphale’s ears. “You are an entire injection blow-molded plastic clamshell.”

Aziraphale pouted slightly. “Are… Are you going to trade me in, then, do you think?”

The affection in Crowley’s sigh was palpable as he sat on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair. “No, you vexatious vixen.” He wrapped his arms around the angel’s shoulders, placing a gentle kiss on top of his cloud-stuff hair. “I’ve already got what I want. And it was worth every single bit and bob that kept slowing me down along the way. Now,” he took the near-full glass out of the angel’s hands, drinking it in three large gulps before leaning back over to refill it again. “Let’s see if I can’t catch back up to you.”

“Then maybe we can get you out of that ridiculous packaging.”

Crowley’s mouth dropped open, voice raising a few octaves. “How dare you!”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’re the one wearing _shrink-wrap pants_.”

“Says the angel bubble-wrapped in 27 layers of _prim_.”

“Do you cut them off with scissors or do you just sand them down and repaint the next day?”

“How many sheep had to go cold to provide wool for all of your layers?”

“Do you put them on wet and go over them with a hair dryer?”

“Do you look like that because you began dressing in 1840 and only just now fastened the last button?”

The two of them looked at one another for a moment before breaking into peals of mirthful laughter.

“You just keep drinking, my dear,” Aziraphale said, patting Crowley on the knee as he stood up. “I’ll go get the scissors.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The Gift Of You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830924) by [ExMarks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExMarks/pseuds/ExMarks)


End file.
